REDWOOD CITY — A Pacifica attorney with a criminal record who’s had her law license suspended over a botched divorce, is now accused of smuggling pills to a prisoner in San Mateo County jail, officials said Wednesday.

Erika Jordening, 43, was arrested Tuesday during an attorney-client visit at San Mateo County jail after deputies allegedly caught her passing some type of pills to inmate Aaron Rauls, said San Mateo County Sheriff’s Lt. Larry Schumaker. Police didn’t identify the drug.

Rauls, 43, of Pacifica is in custody awaiting sentencing on a felony methamphetamine possession case, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. He said Rauls may have a romantic connection with Jordening. Rauls’ attorney of record for the drug case is a different lawyer, Wagstaffe said.

Jordening is facing trial in September in a petty theft case and has a conviction for the same crime in 2004, authorities said. She’s being held in lieu of $70,000 bail on charges of bringing contraband into the jail and conspiracy, Schumaker said.

The state bar suspended Jordening’s law license in October 2003 when she didn’t respond to state bar charges she failed to finalize an Orange County woman’s divorce, according to bar records. As part of a deal with officials, Jordening was publicly rebuked in January 2004 for the mishandled divorce, but was allowed to resume practicing law.

Violent police encounters in California last year led to the deaths of 157 people and six officers, the state attorney general’s office said Thursday in a report that provides the first statewide tally on police use-of-force incidents.